Certified Ubuntu Cloud Guest: the Best of Ubuntu on the Best Clouds the Benefits of Using Certified Images When You Choose the Cloud’S Favourite OS

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eBOOK Certified Ubuntu Cloud Guest: the best of Ubuntu on the best clouds The benefits of using certified images when you choose the cloud’s favourite OS

COMMERCIAL SUPPORT GUARANTEED TO BE FAST ISSUE RESOLUTION COMPATABILITY WITH FROM VENDOR UP TO DATE AND BUG FIXES UBUNTU CLOUD TOOLSET Certified Ubuntu Cloud Guest: the best of Ubuntu on the best clouds

What you will learn

Ubuntu has a long history in the cloud. It is the Certified Ubuntu Cloud Guest images give you An enormous amount of work goes into world’s number one platform for deployments the peace of mind you need to run mission critical creating and maintaining certified images, of OpenStack – the world’s leading cloud workloads on any of the world’s leading public because it’s necessary to ensure that the best infrastructure platform. And it is the number clouds. They are supported by Canonical, Ubuntu experience is available to everyone. one guest operating system, with more the company behind Ubuntu, ensuring that With a cutting-edge toolset and enterprise images running on the leading public clouds updated images are delivered automatically commercial support available directly from than all other operating systems combined. and that bugs and vulnerabilities are fixed fast. the vendor, there’s no better choice in the Additionally, as the images are standardised, cloud – whatever the cloud. And if you’re Ubuntu is a free operating system; in fact anyone they help you avoid being locked into the considering using the services of a public cloud can download an image, whenever they want. services of one infrastructure supplier. They provider who currently doesn’t offer certified So why are certified images so important? ensure that you are always running on the Ubuntu images, ask them to talk to Canonical Certified images are essential for organisations most up-to-date version of Ubuntu, so you today about joining the CPC program and and individuals that require the highest level of can rely on complete compatibility with other offering all the benefits of Ubuntu certified security and reliability. Whether it’s an unforeseen up-to-date Ubuntu images, whether they’re images to their customers. Because in today’s incompatibility that requires extensive developer running on your developers’ laptops or other competitive cloud world, you need all the resource to fix, or a security vulnerability that public clouds. advantages you can get, whether you’re impedes operations while you wait for a patch, a startup or a stock market titan. the implications downtime and vulnerabilities can often be measured in millions of dollars.

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About the author

At Canonical, Udi heads up the Ubuntu Certified Public Cloud program, which aims to bring the best of Ubuntu Guest (VMs and containers) to users of Ubuntu partner clouds. Most of Udi’s career to date has been focused on bringing transformative technologies from inception to commercialisation – both with startups and large corporates. Apart from his day job, Udi enjoys running, yoga, reading and startup mentorship. Having previously worked in Israel, the US, Japan and France, since 2011 Udi has resided in London, UK with his family.

Udi Nachmany Director, Ubuntu Certified Public Cloud

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Content

A history of leadership in the cloud 05 Consistent experience 10 Commercial support from 14 across clouds the vendor Long-term support for 06 long-term success Consistency with development 11 An established ecosystem 15 and testing of services What exactly are certified images? 07 Guaranteed to be up-to-date 11 How to make sure you are using 16 10 reasons to choose certified images 08 certified images Fast issue resolution and bug fixes 12 The best Ubuntu experience 09 About Canonical 17 at all times Rapid update and software installation 12 In conclusion 18 Optimised for all leading 09 Compatibility with the Ubuntu public clouds cloud toolset 13 Learn more 19

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A history of leadership in the cloud

Ubuntu has long been one of the world’s One of the first operating systems to be made It is: favourite free operating systems. It has seen available widely on the world’s public clouds, it • Proven for enterprise-scale workloads success on the desktop, the server, mobile now enjoys a dominant position on clouds from on all leading public clouds devices and in the cloud – where vendors including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, it is truly dominant. IBM and numerous others. • Free from licence fees, regardless of how many images you run It is the number one infrastructure OS Today, Ubuntu runs more public cloud workloads for OpenStack, the world’s leading open than any other platform – in most cases with • Enterprise-grade support and management source cloud platform, with 65% of OpenStack a share of 60-70% of instances. Fast, secure and tools available directly from Canonical deployments. This has led Canonical to develop proven in the most demanding production • Maintenance and security updates an unrivalled toolset for automating and environments, its significant developer guaranteed for five years with Ubuntu LTS simplifying some of the most challenging mindshare, a favourable licensing model, (long-term support) versions aspects of cloud design and implementation. and a policy of regular updates are just some of the advantages that have made it the Ubuntu Cloud Guest is a virtualised version world’s number one platform. of Ubuntu Server, adapted for use on public clouds of all kinds.

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Long-term support for long-term success

Crucial to the success of Ubuntu in enterprise Every certified image of Ubuntu is based environments has been its predictable release on an LTS release, however the promise schedule and commitment to support each of certified images goes much further release for a given period. than regular updates. A release of Ubuntu has taken place every six months for the last decade, with a long-term support release (LTS) being issued every two years, complete with the guarantee of security and maintenance updates for a full five years. As Ubuntu has evolved into a mainstay of the cloud, the guarantee of long-term support has been vital to its users.

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What exactly are certified images?

Anyone can deploy an Ubuntu image – even Certified Images are offered by public cloud their own – onto a cloud. It’s one reason why operators who have joined Canonical’s Ubuntu the OS is so popular. But for mission-critical Certified Public Cloud Program. This means workloads that can scale to thousands of that they work closely with Canonical on many virtual servers, certified images are vital. levels to ensure an optimal Ubuntu-based user experience on their clouds. Certified Ubuntu Cloud Guest images are official images of Ubuntu Server, produced and maintained by Canonical and optimised individually to run on public clouds. Free from licence fees, they offer all the benefits of the standard image, from frequent scheduled release cycles and low total cost of ownership, to interoperability with a range of cloud platforms and freedom from vendor lock-in. So cloud operators and users will always have access to the latest Ubuntu features, backed up by the system’s extensive security and compliance accreditations.

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10 reasons to choose certified images

There are many reasons to ensure your workloads are running on certified images. The most important include:

1. The best Ubuntu experience at all times 8. 100% compatible with the cutting-edge Ubuntu cloud toolset 2. Optimised for the leading public clouds 9. Systems management and enterprise-grade 3. Dependable experience across clouds Ubuntu Advantage support packages 4. Consistency with your development 10. A rich ecosystem of services at your fingertips and testing environments Let’s look at each one in turn 5. Guaranteed to be up-to-date

6. Fast issue resolution and bug fixes

7. Rapid update and software installation

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1. The best Ubuntu experience 2. Optimised for the leading at all times public clouds Certified Ubuntu images are the only images Ubuntu offers the best experience of any cloud Every public cloud infrastructure is different, from developed, published and managed by Canonical, guest operating system – and certified Ubuntu the kernel to the virtualisation layer. To ensure the the company behind Ubuntu. Which means images offer that experience consistently. best user experience, the world’s leading public they are the only images you can be sure have Regular updates of cloud images mean that the clouds – including industry heavyweights such as come from a trusted and secure source. number of updates users need to run is usually Microsoft, Amazon, Google and IBM – deploy minimal, which speeds up the deployment of certified Ubuntu images. This means that, while An enormous amount of work goes into new instances and lets users react quickly to they include packages and tools a vendor requires creating and maintaining certified images. demands without costly idling of resources. to enable unique features on their particular They are the only ones guaranteed to benefit cloud platform, they remain complete in terms from Canonical’s ongoing development work, of all the Ubuntu code. which includes performance analysis and testing at scale, across multiple public cloud By working directly with the providers environments. And they are the only ones through the Certified Public Cloud Program, guaranteed to include all the latest kernel Canonical ensures that every certified image patches, drivers, tools and packages benefits from the same Canonical testing at the time of deployment. and optimisation as the base Ubuntu image, regardless of modifications for a particular vendor. Moreover, they benefit from extra Canonical tests, specific to the partner cloud.

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3. Dependable experience across clouds The cloud – and in particular, the open cloud – So if you run your workloads on a certified evolved with many implicit promises. Among image with one public cloud vendor, you can them was the freedom for users to move be assured that the same great experience can workloads from cloud to cloud, seamlessly. be had on another Ubuntu-certified platform. Like all technology markets, however, vendors innovate to compete. And any unique features We work very closely with each cloud owner, they introduce, while contributing to the not only to ensure they can add tools and code technological development of the cloud into Ubuntu, but also to ensure that all these as a whole, can introduce variations that additional features are packaged and supported by Canonical – and crucially,updated with the make it more difficult for users to switch. USER BENEFITS The ability of the cloud user to negotiate is rest of the OS. therefore diminished as the threat of lock-in This means users can benefit from the rears its head. features that innovative vendors are putting With certified Ubuntu images, however, all into their clouds without compromising their aspects of the image are tested – including ability to switch clouds, or even use multiple any vendor specific code – to ensure that the cloud providers. Ubuntu experience remains the same, but optimised to the specific cloud provider.

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4. Consistency with your 5. Guaranteed to be up-to-date development and testing Canonical updates all certified images regularly, usually delivering them on an automated basis, environments so a user of a partner cloud will always be able Fundamental to the success of Ubuntu in the to deploy the freshest images cloud has been its popularity with developers – Images are made available to partner clouds and specifically the consistency between the every 24 hours with enablement, development, Ubuntu image and associated tools, from the publication and maintenance across all cloud desktop to the server and the cloud. This means availability zones. Each one has been checked that the version of the OS running on your chosen for any changes to the packages and any updated public cloud will behave exactly the same as the code is automatically rolled in. Updates to the version running on your developers’ laptops and any Linux kernel do require a reboot to take effect. staging or testing environments you operate These are rolled in and delivered on a six-weekly in-house. If you are using OpenStack internally, basis, due to the additional testing requirements – as part of a hybrid cloud architecture, the images and this makes it quicker and easier to spin the running on your private cloud will behave in images up. Nevertheless, the regular cadence the same way as those running elsewhere. means that the version of the Linux kernel running Even the service modelling toolset, based around inside any certified image at any time will always Canonical’s Juju, will treat all environments be within six weeks of the latest version. identically, automating deployment and management, wherever your services need to run.

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6. Fast issue resolution and 7. Rapid update and bug fixes software installation As described above, certified Ubuntu images Canonical works closely with public cloud contain additional packages. Canonical ensures that vendors to optimise update mechanisms, all that new code is subject to the same Quality which means you can reduce update time, Assurance processes as the rest of Ubuntu. complexity and costs and focus on meeting your service-level targets. Secure archive Certified Ubuntu images are tested in the mirrors provide Ubuntu software packages cloud at scale, so you can rely on them to work and are continually updated to have the latest in production. Based on knowledge gleaned package updates. For the larger clouds – usually from more than five years of diagnosing and more than 250 Ubuntu hosts per region or acting on the issues that can arise in large availability zone – providers are required to cloud deployments, Canonical will address make images available in all regions, to ensure bugs through Ubuntu’s standard process, fast and reliable access. whether it pertains purely to Ubuntu or the way the OS interacts with the cloud vendor’s own code.

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8. 100% compatibility with the Ubuntu toolset Ubuntu has been at the forefront of cloud the relationships of applications, so automation infrastructure development for more than five and scaling of solution deployments no longer years – almost as long, in fact, as commercial requires script and configuration file editing. public clouds have existed. In this time, Canonical has strengthened the Ubuntu cloud offering Whether you are deploying an environment with a suite of tools that can help you simplify, for the first time or making a set of changes speed up, and secure your cloud operations. to an existing one, you can deploy services By using certified images, you ensure that you to your target cloud in minutes with the click can make the most of the entire cloud toolset. of a button or a short command. And with Juju Charm bundles, you can launch an entire cloud Juju could be considered the core of Canonical’s environment with one click. cloud ecosystem. It is the fastest way to deploy and scale out your Ubuntu workloads on any While its feature set is growing as fast as the compatible cloud – including private clouds built cloud itself, Juju has already been available for on OpenStack, and all of the world’s leading several years, making it a mature technology. public clouds. Its powerful GUI, command- It’s one of the reasons why it is relied on so line and API interfaces make it easy to model, heavily today, with industry heavyweights deploy, manage, monitor and scale out your including Microsoft, IBM, HP, Intel and Cisco services quickly. Juju automatically manages all using it – with many of them contributing to its development.

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9. Commercial support from the vendor If you need enterprise-grade commercial Landscape is the systems management support, it’s available in the form of Ubuntu solution at the heart of Ubuntu Advantage. Advantage, the Canonical services package. It offers a complete package for managing It provides access to experienced Canonical your Ubuntu estate, and because it is designed engineers, as well as a range of tools and specifically for Ubuntu by Canonical, it offers services that help you optimise the performance more features than any platform-agnostic of your cloud-based solutions. alternative could, enabling you to easily and effectively manage, patch and update your Used together, Ubuntu Advantage and certified Ubuntu machines. Ubuntu images guarantee the best possible Ubuntu experience. In addition to the bespoke To learn more about supporting your direct support your cloud vendor receives as cloud with Ubuntu Advantage, visit part of the Certified Public Cloud program, ubuntu.com/management/landscape-features you too will enjoy direct access to engineering support from Canonical.

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10. An established ecosystem of services Organisations the world over choose Ubuntu for their cloud workloads, in part because of the enormous range of services it supports. When you choose a certified Ubuntu image, you can rely on that entire ecosystem to be fully functional in your cloud environment. From Ceph, Hadoop and MySQL to Nagios, Wordpress and IBM DB2, virtually every major business application can run in the cloud on Ubuntu. Use your certified images in combination with Juju and Landscape and you can deploy, monitor and manage a world-class cloud DEPLOY, MONITOR AND operation; safe in the knowledge that you MANAGE A WORLD-CLASS have the full support of Canonical. CLOUD OPERATION

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How to make sure you are using certified images

To find a public cloud partner offering certified On many clouds, non-certified Ubuntu images If you are deploying Ubuntu Cloud Guests in Ubuntu images, go to the Ubuntu partner site have been made available by application the public cloud, you will be able to find the at ubunt.eu/cpc vendors in the marketplace. Often, they are latest images in the main image menu of the captured from running images. This means cloud you have chosen. This means you can that they are not certified by Canonical, and deploy certified Ubuntu Cloud Guests quickly they may not benefit from the updates and and easily, with no need to download or install support that all certified images enjoy. them manually.

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In conclusion

Alongside hygiene factors like security, The real promise of Ubuntu lies not simply in For mission critical workloads, certified Ubuntu stability and speed, Ubuntu benefits from downloading and deploying your own images, images are nothing short of a necessity. significant developer mindshare, a favourable but in tapping into the best user experience, licensing model and a policy of regular updates. the rich ecosystem and the service package Together, these advantages have made it the offered to cloud suppliers and customers alike. number one cloud operating system, both for And you can only be sure of this when you the base infrastructure and the guest images insist on certified Ubuntu images. that run on top.

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About Canonical

At Canonical, we are passionate about By providing custom engineering, support the potential of open source software to contracts and training, we help clients in the transform business. For over a decade, we telecoms and IT services industries to cut have supported the development of Ubuntu costs, improve efficiency and tighten security and promoted its adoption in the enterprise. with Ubuntu and OpenStack. We work with hardware manufacturers like HP, Dell and Intel, to ensure the software we create can be delivered on the world’s most popular devices. And we contribute thousands of man- hours every year to projects like OpenStack, to ensure that the world’s best open source software continues to fulfil its potential.

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Learn more

You can learn more about the Ubuntu Certified Public Cloud Program at partners.ubuntu.com/ programmes/public-cloud

You can follow the Ubuntu Insights cloud blog at insights.ubuntu.com/cloud-and-server/

To find a cloud provider offering certified Ubuntu images, go to ubunt.eu/cpc

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